2023-08-29 07:12:21
by Health Editor
A 64-year-old Australian patient had also been complaining of memory lapses for some time. The neurosurgeon’s surprise to find a parasite that usually infects pythons
This 64-year-old Australian woman had suffered from depression and memory lapses for some time now and this 64-year-old Australian woman could never have imagined the cause: a worm, an 8 cm long Ophidascaris robertsi, which is usually found in pythons, had nestled in her brain. The worm was extracted alive by neurosurgeon Hari Priya Bandi, of the Canberra hospital, where the woman had been hospitalized. According to scientists, as the Guardianit would be the first case in the world of finding the parasite in humans and the report was published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Symptoms
The woman had been hospitalized for the first time in January 2021 after suffering for three weeks from abdominal pain and diarrhea, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats. Since 2022, memory loss and depression have also been added, so much so as to require hospitalization in Canberra hospital. An MRI of the patient’s brain revealed abnormalities that required surgery. Neurosurgeons often deal with infections in the brain, but this one came as a surprise: Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe what I just found in this lady’s brain , a live squirming worm! Hari Priya Bandi exclaimed to her colleague Sanjaya Senanayake, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases who was treating the patient. A parasite laboratory confirmed that it was Ophidascaris robertsi, a nematode typically found in pythons.
The possible causes
The patient resides in a lake area where pythons are also found. Although the woman has never had direct contact with snakes, she often gathered herbs around the lake to use in cooking and scientists speculate that a python may have spread the parasite through feces released into the grass. An ad hoc cure was studied for the patient with the aim of preventing other larvae from invading other parts of the body, such as the liver for example. At the moment the woman is recovering well and is still being strictly monitored.
(In the photos below, taken from the article Human Neural Larva Migrans Caused by Ophidascaris robertsi Ascarid: the magnetic resonance image; the larva removed from the right frontal lobe; another image of the larva, 8 centimeters long, with a diameter of one millimeter).
August 28, 2023 (change August 28, 2023 | 18:22)
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